I recently had my computer upgraded from 450Mghz to 1000Mghz and then
had the hard drive reformated and Windows2000 Professional Installed, along
with some other software. I also have 256K of memory. I'm wondering if the
following is a problem.
It takes an awful long time for my PC to boot up(between 5 and 10 minutes)
and even longer to shutdown(between 10 and 15 minutes).
If I'm up and running and I do a restart, it takes a solid 15 to 20
minutes to go through the shutdown and reboot cycle.
While booting, it gets to the point where the little bar is moving from
left to right. It gets almost to the end and just sits there. You can't
really tell what it's doing since it just sits on that one screen. Is there a
way to tell what it's doing? Same question during shutdown.
Is this
 normal under this operating system? If not, could it have something to
do with my upgrade? Is there anything I can do to improve the startup and
shutdown time?
Also, I was told that Windows2000 Professional is incompatible with
Soundblaster AudioPCI. It seems to be true because I have no sound. Are there
any driver files that I can download to make my soundcard is compatible, or
do I just need to get a new compatible soundcard?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

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